


Tattoos and Superheros

by Waiting_on_Amelia



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Artist Zayn, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Famous Liam, Famous Louis, Famous Niall, Fluff, Kinda, Liam Payne & Louis Tomlinson Friendship, M/M, Niall Horan & Liam Payne Friendship, Niall Horan & Louis Tomlinson Friendship, Non-Famous Harry, Non-Famous Zayn, Soulmates, Superheros, Zayn Malik & Harry Styles Friendship, also kinda - Freeform, because why not, i think thats enough tags, one direction - Freeform, they really like superheros, zayn and harry work in a bakery, zayn is in college
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:18:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8128391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waiting_on_Amelia/pseuds/Waiting_on_Amelia
Summary: Inspired by this tumblr post: "AU where everyone is born with a very unique tattoo on their ankle, nobody else in the world has that tattoo. Every time you fall in love with someone, their tattoo appears somewhere else on your body. (not necessarily soulmates, just who you fall in love with)."
Zayn Malik, who only has one tattoo on his body that wasn't his own, and that was enough. He didn't need anymore than that, it was difficult enough the first time. 
Liam Payne, the popstar who falls in love too easily, whose body is scattered with tattoos.
So what happens when they meet and find a new tattoo on each of their bodies? I blame the Superhero Incident.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As I said in the summary, this story is inspired by that tumblr post! Credits to whoever posted that, apologies that I can't find the user. Although I don't follow One Direction very much, I have a soft spot for Liam and Zayn so I thought I'd give this a go. Hope you enjoy! :-)

  
“Harry, did you turn on the AC?” Zayn groans, pushing the sleeves of his Batman sweatshirt, “It’s hot as Satan’s balls in here.” Zayn slouches against the counter, glad he is only working the cashier in the bakery today instead of actually having to make anything. The heat was making him tired and even lazier than usual. He looks around the small bakery, it being empty because it was 2 in the afternoon, when its usually not very busy.  
“Haz!” Zayn calls, finally deciding to just walk into the back room where he finds Harry, with his hair in a bun, some escaped curls falling out of it, and no shirt on, his huge butterfly tattoo perfectly on display, “Harry, have you been listening to me at all?”   
Harry whips his head up, seemingly having not heard Zayn walking in, his arms covered in batter from where he was currently making cookies. “Oh, hey Zayn, sorry, must’ve not heard you,” but Harry’s grin gives away that he most definitely did hear him.   
Zayn just rolls his eyes, “Harry, its April and we live in LA. Why the fuck did you keep the AC off?” Harry just shrugs his shoulders in reply, which isn’t really surprising since it seemed like Harry doesn’t have a valid reason for most of the stuff he does.   
“Maybe you should take your sweatshirt off if you’re so hot,” Harry rolls his eyes before turning back to his cookies, taking scoops out of the batter and pressing them into perfect circles. Zayn sighs, his right arm unconsciously coming up to rub the bicep of his left arm where one of the only two tattoos he has is. Knowing that with Harry having up to his elbows covered with batter, he wouldn’t turn on the AC, Zayn heads back into the front of the bakery to turn it off himself.   
“Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve not heard you come in,” Zayn stops behind the counter once he realizes there’s a man in front of him, the AC forgotten. The man was turned towards some of the framed art pieces littering the walls and back turned toward Zayn. “Is there anything I could help you with, sir?” The man, wearing what seems like black jeans, a red sweatshirt and a hat, still has his back to Zayn, like he didn’t hear him at all. Which honestly, he might not have because it seems like he was focused on the different types of art on the walls and honestly, Zayn feels a bit embarrassed. He glances down at his own dirty black vans and black jeans, which were rolled up enough to broadcast his only other tattoo, a big yellow ‘Zap!’ in his handwriting, with a cool looking red bubble surrounding it and black dots. He glances back at the man, “Do you like the art? The couple that owns this place insists on putting it up on the walls, it gets kind of embarrassing, really,” Zayn scratches the back of his head, kind of feeling like he was talking to himself since the man hasn’t said anything at all.   
And finally, the man turns around, and if you ask Zayn, he is not proud of his next couple moments. “Liam Payne,” Zayn breathes out. And yeah, definitely not proud. But here is Liam Payne, 1/3 of a band called One Direction, who –Zayn must admit- is an awesome band, and when Harry doesn’t insist on playing his weird hipster bands in the bakery, One Direction is playing pretty regularly, and even Harry, the boy who gets very pretentious about his music (“They’re good bands, Zayn, you just have to focus on the lyrics”), finds himself singing along to them. But Zayn just winces, great, he meets Liam Payne, who admittedly, Zayn has had a celebrity crush on forever (if you see him with his big, brown, crinkly eyes and glorious muscles, you would understand. He looks a bit like a puppy and a sex god all mixed into one), and he makes a fool out of himself. He glances at Liam again, who just looks at Zayn blankly like he gets this kind of reaction all the time. Which he does, I mean, he’s Liam Payne. But what is he doing here? In this bakery? Or in LA in general? And what is he doing without any security? One Direction is one of the biggest bands in the world, so where is all of his security? Or the dedicated fans that Zayn has seen pictures of Liam getting mobbed by?  
“You made this stuff?” Which, wow, Liam Payne sounds even hotter in person. But instead of showing this (Zayn has made enough of a fool of himself), he just shrugs, looking at all the different pieces, ranging from black and white doodles to paintings when Zayn decided to mess around with watercolor (not really his thing) to a couple of pictures he put straight onto the wall in the corner, graffiti style. It all makes the bakery feel kind of messy, not a bad messy, but messy nonetheless. But apparently, the owners love it, and since Zayn is secretly pleased that they like his art, he doesn’t complain that often about how embarrassing it is to have it all out for everyone to see.   
Realizing he didn’t even reply to the man (who is only actually 19, one year older than Zayn himself, so he’s not sure if ‘man’ is the right word for him) standing in front of him, he shrugs, “Yeah, I just mess around with it some.”   
Liam finally grins, “You’re really good, this stuff is pretty cool,” Sometime while Zayn was looking over the bakery, Liam had walked to the front of the counter, right by the display case of sweets that mostly Harry made (Zayn sticks to working the counter or making the cakes, Harry does everything else). And as Zayn smiles back, blushing and avoiding eye contact because regular people complimenting his work is embarrassing enough, and this is Liam Payne so the embarrassment is knocked up a few levels. Before Zayn gets to thank him though, Harry pops his head in from the back, probably having heard Zayn talking to someone (which, alright, Harry pretends he couldn’t hear Zayn calling for Harry earlier, but apparently now his hearing is perfect).   
“You know, Zayn, when there is a costumer waiting at the counter, usually normal people take their order instead of standing there like an idiot,” Sometimes Zayn just wants to kill Harry, and this is one of those times. Harry is just smiling like the smug asshole he is, completely oblivious to the fact that the costumer standing in front of Zayn is from the band One Direction –his favorite member from One Direction- so Zayn gets to stand here like an idiot, thank you very much. Harry ducks back into the back just as quickly as he came.  
Zayn glares at where Harry had just been standing before turning towards Liam again, deciding to actually follow Harry’s advice. “Yeah, uh, would you like anything, sir?” Zayn almost cringes again when he says ‘sir’ but no matter who it is, even Mr. Puppy/Sex God Guy, Zayn always likes to be polite when he’s working with a costumer.   
“Yeah, could I have a medium coffee and a piece of carrot cake to go?” And this, Zayn can do so he smiles before turning around to get Liam’s order, cutting a piece of carrot cake before placing it in a box then into a bag that says Carter’s Bakery on the side of it, and pouring his coffee. Zayn rings up the items before looking up to ask Liam if that was all he wanted, only to see him already looking down at Zayn intently. “Nice sweatshirt, Zayn,” And if it wasn’t for the fact that Zayn was really confused about this topic change, he probably would have internally freaked out that Liam knew Zayn’s name, even though he probably just heard Harry saying it.  
Zayn glances down at the black Batman sweatshirt he was wearing, which just reminded him of how fucking hot it was in the bakery right now, before looking at Liam’s own sweatshirt. Zayn laughed, coincidentally, Liam was wearing a red Superman sweatshirt. “Thanks, but I mean, yours is better, Superman has always been my favorite, but I never could find a Superman sweatshirt, so,” He shrugs.  
And it looked like Liam light up at that, grinning widely, “Really? To be honest, I like Batman way more.” And they both seemed to laugh at that, ironically they were wearing sweatshirts of the other’s favorite superhero. “You know what?” Liam says, his eyes twinkling mischievously before pulling off his sweatshirt, leaving his perfectly sculpted abs on display and hot damn, if Zayn wasn’t blushing like an idiot before, he definitely was now. “Let’s trade,” Liam pulls Zayn out of his stare (you can’t blame him, those abs are glorious), holding his sweatshirt out for Zayn. And honestly, Zayn thinks he has never been in such a weird situation. Nevertheless, he grins back at Liam before pulling off his own sweatshirt, sending a silent thank you because luck just seemed to be on his side right now. He’s wearing a plain white t-shirt under his sweatshirt (his stomach was definitely not as nice as Liam’s), there was no one else in the bakery to interrupt this amazing, albeit odd, moment and Liam fucking Payne came into the bakery in the first place, so yes, luck was definitely in his favor today. They exchange the sweatshirts before pulling each other’s on, still grinning the entire time. Liam was more muscular than Zayn so the Batman sweatshirt that was kind of big on Zayn fit Liam perfectly and Liam’s sweatshirt was a little big on Zayn, but Zayn loved it.   
“So how much do I owe you?” Zayn forgot all about the cake and coffee (which had probably gone cold by now), but quickly he looks down at the food before looking up at Liam.   
“Its on me,” Zayn shrugs and cuts Liam off before he could protest, “I’m guessing this sweatshirt probably costs more than my sweatshirt and your order combined, so its cool.”  
“I think I can pay for it, mate.”  
Zayn rolls his eyes, “I know you can pay for it. Just say its my thanks for making my shitty day less shitty,” Zayn grins and this time its Liam’s turn to roll his eyes, but a smile was tugging at his lips.   
“Okay, well, see you around Zayn,” But he lets his sentence trail off like a question, and it was obvious that he was waiting for Zayn to tell him his last name.   
“Malik, its Zayn Malik.”  
“Alright, see you around Zayn Malik.” And with that and one last grin, Liam turns and walks out the door, and if you couldn’t see the slight blush on his cheeks, you would think he was completely unaffected by the entire exchange in the bakery whereas Zayn was gaping after Liam’s back as he walks away.  
“So,” Zayn is startled out of his head by Harry, who’s leaning on the doorframe that leads into the kitchen, and who knows how long he’s been standing there, Harry has the ability to act like a little shit sometimes so he was probably just watching Zayn look like an idiot. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell just happened?”

 

“So that’s where you disappeared off to.” Liam jumps and turns around only to see Paul, one of his security guards, sitting on the bench right outside of Carter’s Bakery. Liam grins sheepishly after Paul lets out an exasperated sigh and says, “You’ve got to stop doing this, Liam. You know how unsafe it is for you to be on your own.” And yes, Liam does know, but sometimes he needs some time to himself, which includes ditching his body guards.  
“I didn’t get mobbed,” Liam shrugged, “I was as sneaky as a spy, Paul, there’s no need to worry.”  
“Who’s that then?” Paul gestured into the window where the tanned, dark-haired, gorgeous boy that he just met was talking to his curly-haired co-worker who was just as attractive and thankfully neither of them were looking out the windows to where Liam and his bodyguard were.   
‘Zayn Malik’ Liam thinks, but instead of telling this to Paul, he just shrugs again, “Just a fan.”  
“So you trade sweatshirts with all your fans?” And Christ, how long was Paul watching them? That’s probably why management pays their security so well, they’re damn good at their job. Liam sneaks off in the middle of LA and Paul still manages to find him within 30 minutes.  
“What can I say, I’m a nice person,” Liam grins, trying not to seem so obvious.  
Paul just rolls his eyes, and at this, Liam grins again. No matter how much Paul pretends Liam is a pain in the ass, Paul loves him anyways. “Come on, management called, you’ve got a meeting,” Paul ushers Liam into a black car that pulls up in front of the bakery and Liam gets one more look at the tanned, artistic boy through the window before they drive away. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of ideas on how this story is going to go, so bear with me. This is the first story I am posting to archive of our own so I would really appreciate if you could comment or give this a kudos! Lots of love xx


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